Scream, Swear & Drink Your Way to Good Health with Rage Yoga

Maybe doing downward dog in a modern yoga studio while listing to soothing sounds of new age music isn’t your idea of fun. Perhaps, you’d prefer your yoga poses be accompanied by beer, cursing and heavy metal music. If so, then you have to try Rage Yoga— “a practice involving stretching, positional exercises and bad humor, with the goal of attaining good health and to become zen…”

Rage Yoga is not like your traditional yoga program. Founded by Lindsay Istace, a trained contortionist, fire eater, and now yogi, Rage Yoga uses a different approach to help students find inner peace. Istace founded Rage Yoga after feeling out of place at the average yoga studio. On her website, she says yoga studios can be intimidating, as well as overly serious and serene. Make the wrong move and you could disturb the peace.

“Rage yoga is like regular yoga… only with more swearing and shenanigans,” according its Facebook page. It’s not a new discipline, but rather a casual approach to an existing health practice.

Istace’s classes are held in a dimly lit pub basement in Calgarian, Canada on Mondays and Wednesdays. When you register for her class, you get two tickets for two drafts of Dickens beer. Can’t make it to Calgarian? Istace also holds traveling workshops, and we may see classes available online as the trend continues to gain traction.

Istace started her anger- and beer-infused yoga program while going through a really painful breakup. On her website, she explains integrating cursing and screaming into her yoga practice helped her overcome addiction and anger issues.

“My practice gave me a strong body-mind connection and a new appreciation for my body. I learned how to slow my mind, fell good in my body and built some decent pipes while I was at it. It helped me overcome addiction and weather a lot of life’s obstacles. It kept me healthy and sane!”

Though yelling f-bombs and chugging beer may not sound therapeutic, a class of this kind may actually offer some health benefits. In addition to the known benefits of yoga, science suggests swearing can improve your pain tolerance, while beer can hydrate your body the same as water after a workout. Moderate drinking is also associated with a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke.

What do you think of this emerging yoga trend? Let us know in the comments below!

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